How NYC’s Skyscrapers Get Washed

Some of New York City’s modern skyscraper architecture can eliminate conventional methods of window-washing. It is true though that the window-washing industry benefits from the city’s glass-filled skyline. Beginning last year, window-washing services have had an increase in demand to maintain the growing number of tall steel and glass buildings. Buildings made of brick can usually be cleaned from the inside, whereas these glass and steel buildings require more attention.

These buildings need to be washed about twice a year in order for them to avoid being covered in smudges and fingerprints. The cost for cleaning such elevated buildings? This can run as high as $50,000 or more when you consider the 6,500 windows of the Empire State Building. These jobs also take several weeks to complete, or possibly longer. For example, to clean the Time Warner Center in Columbus Circle, it took two crews about 3 months to complete the job. With a smaller crew of six men,it would take at least 4 months.

Window washers have described the Empire State Building as being particularly difficult, because tenants on higher floors have been known to throw things out of the windows. A building window cleaner recalls in The New Yorker, “One time, they threw, like twenty gallons of strawberry preserves- and it went through ten floors, all over the windows. And it was the winter, so it froze on there and we couldn’t get it off.”

Perhaps an easier solution- Engineers at Tactel Swingstage took three years and around $3 million to design a cleaning ring that could clean the Hearst Tower. So perhaps the culture of this industry is beginning to change with the architecture. Either way, we’ll stick to Kansas City for now!

If you need your home or business’ windows cleaned, give Pro Window Cleaning a call at 816-920-6943 today!